Did Clinton and Sec Def Cohen ever need to say that in Bosnia and Kosovo?

Iran the next adventure

“I would confess I’m no expert on Iraq.”

“I’m no expert on military matters.”

Gates, you suck.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/26/AR2007012601494.html

WASHINGTON — The Iraq Study Group’s grim report embraces the most worrisome estimates about Muqtada al-Sadr’s private army: He has up to 60,000 fighters, and his followers are planted throughout the security forces protecting the Health Ministry and other Iraqi government nstitutions.

Making matters worse, the high-level panel believes the cleric himself may not be able to manage the diverse and growing parts of his network known as the Mahdi army.

Showing al-Sadr’s deep infiltration into the government, the report found that Iraqis loyal to him dominate the 145,000-strong Facilities Protection Service, which guards the ministries of Health, Agriculture and Transportation _ all controlled by al-Sadr’s political allies. While providing jobs and money for the Mahdi army, the protective service has questionable loyalty to the civilian government, the report said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/07/AR2006120701159.html

You need to impeach bush and bushco and have them all tried in The Hague. If they are innocent and honest they have nothing to fear.

—

“I would confess I’m no expert on Iraq.”

– Defense Secretary Robert Gates, during congressional hearings yesterday. “Later, asked about reaching the right balance between American and Iraqi forces, he told the panel he was ‘no expert on military matters.‘”

—

Conservatives who supported Bush’s reelection are expressing outrage over the administration’s broad use of anti-terrorism laws to reject asylum for thousands of people fleeing religious, ethnic, and political persecution.

—

After a meeting in Iraq with U.S. generals, Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged that commanders “out here have expressed a concern about” President Bush’s plan to increase U.S. troop levels in Iraq.

—

Today on CBS’s Face the Nation, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said he agreed with the Iraq Study Group that the situation in Iraq is “grave and deteriorating.” He disagreed with incoming Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ assessment that the U.S. is neither winning nor losing in Iraq. “We are losing,” Powell said.

—

Incoming Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin’s (D-MI) first question to Defense Secretary nominee Robert Gates: “Mr. Gates, do you believe that we are currently winning in Iraq?”

Gates’ answer: “No, sir.”

—

QUESTION: Just a simple question: Are we winning?

SNOW: We’re making progress. I don’t know. How do you define winning?

Comment by kotzabasis — January 27, 2007 @ 2:44 am

Oh, shut up. The people in this country are not bound to support each and every war that any president — Democrat or Republican — wages.

Saddam was not a threat to America. Colin Powell and Condi Rice both said so in 2001. Powell told us that Saddam was contained, the sanctions were working, and he did not have the capacity to produce WMD’s, especially nuclear weapons. Yet Bush, on 9/12/01 (and reportedly much earlier), was gearing up for an invasion of Iraq because “they have more targets.”

So tell us, kotz, where is Osama “I really don’t think much about him” bin Laden? Hmmmmm?

So where does that leave us now? I’ll tell you, kotz. While Bush and Cheney and Rummy have been busy playing a modern day version of cowboy and indians in the Middle East and celebrating their manhood just a bit, North Korea not only has tested a nuclear weapon, but they are now ready to provide support to Iran.

Comment by Exley — January 26, 2007 @ 6:44 pm

Oh, put a sock in it. Bush telling the Iraqis that we would withdraw if they asked us to also “emboldens the enemy.” (And let me point out that Bush lied. They asked us to leave, yet we are still there.)

All the talk over the last few years from generals and others telling us that we’d be able to draw down our troops “in 6 months” (how many times have we heard that?) emboldens the enemy.

Hell, just the fact that we are in Iraq emboldens the enemy. Don’t you understand that?

And your support of other countries adopting the provisions of the Military Detainee Act, which allows them to capture and hold our troops indefinitely and put them on trial without revealing evidence, also emboldens our enemies. Thank you for your support.

Gamboling with the vital interests of America, they have chosen to become populist leaders for their own narrow egotistical political interests. Instead of leading from the front, they are leading from the “tail”, pushed by the whimsical winds of populism.